Catcalled Day 4

No catcalling today, but I was thinking a lot about one particular incident of borderline harassment (verbal harassment, nothing physical thank goodness) that happened to me about a year ago in August or around then. The reason I was thinking about it was sort of silly; I was doing laundry yesterday and was folding the shirt that I was wearing when it happened. Super cute shirt, red and gray stripes with a scoop neckline.

The Scene: Jimmy John's on Yale and Central
The Characters: My boyfriend, my mom, and me

I was running errands in town with my mom and decided to call my boyfriend when he got out of class to see if he wanted to meet us for lunch. He said yes and suggested the sandwich place Jimmy John's since it was near campus.
So we three get there and get our food and are all set up on the patio enjoying lunch at a table near the door that led inside.
Enter Sketchy Homeless Guy. And let me be clear, I don't just say that because he was homeless or a derelict or whatever. His behavior clearly indicated that he was up to no good (weaving stance, flailing arms, etc). He approached us at our table for money, and we politely turned him away. He mumbled something incoherent and moved on to the next table. He then came back to our table, and after we politely turned him down again, he mumbled "hey i've gotta eat too" before turning away again.
Now being someone who works (well, worked at this point) in a customer service job that has to often deal with people loitering and panhandling in the parking lot, I always appreciate when customers come to tell me about those types of people rather than leaving my work and letting it spoil their day, and subsequently their opinions of our shop. So I went in to Jimmy John's and politely told the girl behind the counter that there was someone panhandling on their patio.
Girl: "Ok thank you. We'll take care of it."

I didn't know that while I was talking to her, the gentleman in question had come in to the cafe and had started asking people inside for money. As soon as I finished talking to her, I turned around and when back outside to my boyfriend and mom.
We were continuing our lunch when the same gentleman came up to our table a third time. My boyfriend, sitting opposite me at the table but closest to Central, got more firm in his turn-down saying "Look man, we don't have any money sorry." The gentleman looks at me, then looks back to my boyfriend and says "Damn, I wish I had tits like that" before stumbling off down Central. It took my boyfriend a good three seconds to say "Are you fucking serious?!" and my mom even less time than that to storm in to the cafe.
What did I do, you ask? Well, in retrospect, what I wanted to do was tell him off and maybe slap him. But what I actually did was immediately hang my head, turn around to grab my mom's jacket (she's always cold so she brings a jacket with her pretty much wherever we go) and begin to cry behind my sunglasses. Cry because I've never been so embarrassed and never felt so degraded in my entire life.
We left shortly thereafter, but not before my superhero of a mother went in to the restaurant and chewed out the manager of Jimmy John's, saying "my daughter came in and told you about this guy and he bugged us three times and now he's just verbally accosted her".
My other reaction, after the shock had worn off, was to throw that shirt away because it made me feel gross to look at it knowing that people thought disgusting things while I was wearing it. I mean, if that one guy had say something awful while I was wearing it, who knows how many other guys had thought the same thing and just didn't say anything, right?
Wrong.
That's why I kept that shirt. Why should I change my outfit/route home/parking spot/behavior/whatever to make sure that I'm not affected by the terrible things people say or do? That just gives them exactly what they want. So I will wear that shirt tomorrow, and I will continue to wear it as long as I want (or until it doesn't fit anymore, whichever comes first) because, as Eve Ensler said it best in her poem "My Short Skirt" "My short skirt, and everything under it, is mine, mine, mine."